


I Am Jack's Second Life

by OccasionalAvenger



Category: Captain America (Movies), Fight Club (1999), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalAvenger/pseuds/OccasionalAvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve watches Fight Club and it hits a little too close to home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Jack's Second Life

There’s a four-foot stack of movies waiting by his television. A lurid pink note on top: _Figured you might be interested in catching up. I took recommendations from everyone I could find. Natasha chose Donnie Darko—you might want to skip that one. ~Tony_

Steve drops the note to the floor and looks at the first movie in the stack. Fight Club. He reads the summary on the back and it’s something about an insomniac and a soap salesman. Something about a secret support group. Steve leans forward and plugs it into the Blu-ray player (he knows how to do that now).

Five minutes later finds him slumped on the couch with a beer, wearing nothing but a pair of cotton shorts and the day’s bruises. The opening credits sear his eyes. There is a sweaty man and a gun and a red leather jacket. Steve tries to guess what time period this is supposed to be. 80’s? 90’s? He should’ve checked before he started. All of SHIELD’s assignments had been in chronological order.

He’s not sure what to make of it—this is not the kind of picture he and Bucky would sneak into on Friday nights. There’s less fighting than he would’ve thought. When it finishes, he doesn’t go to bed, but instead remains molded against the arm of his couch, eyeing the useless dregs at the bottom of his third beer. Maybe he should sell soap.

* * *

 

“Briefings for the next couple of days,” Hill says the next morning, pushing a thick file into Steve’s hands. “Make sure you know them inside and out—and find the rest of STRIKE by o-five-hundred; you’re needed.”

“That’s nice to know,” Steve says. Hill doesn’t smile. He’s still searching for her sense of humor, which Barton swears he’s witnessed. It’s possible that he’s just not funny.

Near the elevator there’s a harried-looking agent with a stack of files not unlike the one Steve is holding. “Hey,” he says when Steve walks up, “can you take this up to C345 for me? I’m late for a meeting, and it’s my third day, so would please tell them Yuan sent it? Please, man, I gotta—”

“Okay,” Steve says, earning a gasped “Thanks” and another file folder in his hand. In the elevator he flips the page off the top file. It’s a picture of a young woman with warm brown eyes and a red stamp over her face that says “deceased.”

He’s seen enough of these that he doesn’t even blink.

 

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

 

On the tarmac, Romanov greets him with her usual false alacrity. There’s a long bandaged cut on her neck, and Steve wonders how close it was to being fatal.

She asks if he’s ready to go, and he replies, “Always,” and then, “Is your neck okay?”

Romanov frowns like he’s said something odd. “Just a flesh wound,” she says, lips quirking when Steve perks up. “Clint snuck Monty Python on your list, huh? Figures.”

Steve opens his mouth to ask about Donnie Darko, but she’s already gone, striding towards the quin-jet. He follows more slowly; his shield feels like deadweight in his hand.

The mission goes as smoothly as any. Steve is learning fast, despite needing to catch up on seventy years’ worth of strategy and weapons and tactical terms. He’s learning about his new team, too. Rollins is about as bright as a stack of bricks; Natasha’s bar for competency is unattainably high; Amparo plays the double bass and assures Steve he’s better off not catching up on modern music.

Rumlow grins at Steve as he wipes his bloody fist on a dead man’s shirttail.

 

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

* * *

 

He spends countless hours in the gym below the Triskelion. His fists wear the punching bags into shapeless sacks with sand leaking out. Natasha is there sometimes, and when he sees her, he falters. He can’t not think when she is there. _I need this more than you,_ he wants to shout, _just let me have this one thing._

Steve says nothing.

He has nothing.

His ability to feel seems to have gone. Maybe the ice burned it out of him, leaving him with blackened, dead insides. He goes to see the cherry blossoms late at night, when the frenetic mobs of tourists have dispersed. Pale pink petals drift in the reeking Potomac River; the air is sickly sweet.

Is that Bucky’s face in the water? Is it Peggy’s?

_You were meant for more than this, you know._

_There’s not enough time…. I gotta put her in the water!_

_Where are we going?_ The future.

 

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.

 

He’s lost everything. He still isn’t free.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, I had to work in my Fight Club fetish into something. All those super cool quotes were totally not written by me.


End file.
